


chemistry (my heart's a city you're out to destroy)

by hi_raeth



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, also featuring reporter!ben because secret identities are the best, it's a superhuman!kylo and reporter!rey AU loosely inspired by superman and lois, it's a superman and lois lane au except kylo isn't a hero and rey isn't very lois-like at all, so um let me rephrase that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2019-12-18 10:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18248015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_raeth/pseuds/hi_raeth
Summary: Kylo Ren - superhuman, mercenary, and the world’s most dangerous man – has recently resurfaced after a mysterious three-month disappearance.Rey Niima, listicle writer by day and investigative reporter by night, is way too busy to worry about that. Seriously, she’s got a million things on her plate - she doesn’t have the time to think about anything else.Especially now that news editor Benjamin Snoke has returned to the office and seems hell-bent on making her life… interesting.





	1. it's a bird, it's a plane, it's kylo ren dramatically lounging on a rooftop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nancylovesreylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nancylovesreylo/gifts).



> Happy belated birthday, Nancy! Earlier this month you came up with [one of the best prompts I've ever seen](https://twitter.com/nancylovesreylo/status/1103086399132069889), and while I'm still holding out hope that someone will come along and do it justice someday, here's my little attempt at it in the meantime. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Title taken from Arcade Fire's _Chemistry_.

Rey wakes up on the first Monday of February to find her phone blowing up with notifications.

The first tweet her eyes land on is a set of pictures with the very uninformative caption _HE LIVES!!!_ , and she’s still blinking sleep out of her eyes when the first grainy photo finally loads and immediately captures her undivided attention as her heart gets lodged somewhere in her throat.

_Kylo._

Hidden amongst the trees dotting the lake, loitering outside a darkened theater, perched precariously atop City Hall – all of the pictures are of Kylo Ren, MIA for three months now and even feared dead by some. Rey had thought herself unaffected by the rumors, secure in the knowledge that she would _know_ somehow if something had happened to him, but tears spring to her eyes all the same as she stares at pixelated, zoomed-in images of him until her vision goes blur.

It’s a message, she knows, but it’s also one she can’t do anything about right now. So she shakes herself out of it and goes through the motions of her usual workday morning, setting her phone aside as she forces breakfast down her throat and pulls on a repeat outfit from last week. But as soon as she reaches the office, Rey can’t help the way her fingers automatically reach for her phone every five minutes to reassure herself that it’s real, he’s back, she isn’t just dreaming again–

She’s busy staring at him for the umpteenth time that morning when she walks right into a wall on her way to get coffee.

No, not a wall, Rey realizes as she looks up from her phone to find a solid expanse of chest and torso and black shirt. A little further up, and she finds a man looking at her as if he’s on a particularly bad trip and she’s a dancing, flying elephant.

Bewilderment is the best way Rey can think of to describe it, but all she’s done is accidentally run into him while on her phone; surely that doesn’t warrant the way he’s looking at her with wide eyes (she can’t help but notice how dark they are) and tense shoulders (broad, so very, very broad) and parted lips (thicker than she’s ever seen on a man, but still alluring somehow) that look like they’re trying to say something, anything–

Rey beats him to it. “I’m so sorry, I should’ve been paying better attention–”

The man blinks at her, and then promptly walks away.

She’s abruptly reminded of a piece of drunken wisdom Rose had taken it upon herself to share with the rest of the bar at last Friday’s happy hour, fresh off her latest failed Tinder date. _The hot ones are always assholes_ , a tipsy Rose had sagely proclaimed to the bar, only to be met with supportive cheers and enthusiastic applause.

Maybe Rose and the rest of the bar knew what they were talking about after all.

“Fine,” Rey fumes to herself as she turns to watch the asshole’s retreating back cut a path across the office, eventually winding around the staircase leading to the newsroom upstairs. “ _Fine._ Fuck you too, mystery man,” she mutters under her breath, and figures that is that. The news team barely ever mingles with the rest of them anyway, so with any luck Rey won’t ever have to see him and his perfect hair again.

Except after lunch that day Amilyn calls for a staff meeting on the second floor, and as Rey squeezes into the crowded conference room she catches sight of said perfect hair on the opposite end of the room, seated on Amilyn’s right. Thankfully he’s looking straight ahead, leaving her with only a view of that broad, broad back which Rey most definitely does _not_ find distracting as she attempts to focus on their editor-in-chief’s… presentation? Speech? It’s the start of the week, so maybe Amilyn is just giving them all a little pep talk to get things off on the right foot.

In any case, Rey desperately hopes it’s nothing too important. And it probably isn’t, given that Amilyn starts wrapping things up fifteen short minutes later.

“And finally, I’d like to welcome Ben back to the office. It’s been a rough three months without you, and I’m sure the news team is glad to have its editor back. I know I am!” Amilyn beams as a polite round of applause fills the room, and Rey cranes her neck to catch a glimpse of the elusive Ben Snoke, who’d gone on leave to handle some sort of family emergency just days before she joined Raddus.

From the corner of her eye, she catches movement where there should absolutely _not_ be movement. But maybe Mystery Man is just as curious as her, maybe it doesn’t mean anything that he’s slowly turning around in his seat and unfolding his gigantic treelike frame out of the tiny conference room chair–

Mystery Man stands and acknowledges the room with a nod and a tight smile. “Thanks, everyone. It’s good to be back,” he says even as those dark eyes land on her, and the smile falls off his plush lips. “I look forward to working with all of you again.”

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the day goes decidedly downhill from there because there’s no coming back from the realization that your potential future boss hates you for some reason, but at least no one stops Rey when she’s the first to leave the second the clock strikes six.

It doesn’t actually make a difference – she knows he won’t be there until eleven at the earliest – but at least it leaves her with plenty of time to navigate through hellish rush hour traffic and still have dinner and change before she leaves for the Amidala Museum.

 _Their_ museum.

Rey can’t remember exactly when it became their spot, only that one day she spotted Kylo hanging around the museum on her way home and they ended up talking about their mutual love of the place for more than an hour. It had been one of the very first real conversations they’d shared, and just thinking about it still brings a smile to her face nearly two years later.

She’s chasing after a wisp of a memory about his favorite exhibit when a familiar, faint rasp announces his presence. It’s that damn voice modulator as always, giving him away before he can get the chance to sneak up on her.

A thrill races down Rey’s spine as she prepares to turn around.

Three months. It’s been three months since she last saw Kylo, last made him laugh, last stood a little too close–

She can feel him standing right behind her now, and a tiny shudder works its way through her body as Rey processes their proximity. Forget news editor Ben Snoke and his plush, kissable lips and his unfairly attractive voice – nothing will ever come close to the way Kylo sets her blood on fire.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

Rey turns and nearly staggers backwards as she comes face-to-face with all six-foot-three of her masked man, and she folds her arms across her chest to keep her hands to herself as she tips her head back to look at him. “It’s been three months, Kylo. Of course I showed up.”

It’s impossible to tell with that mask of his, but Rey thinks she detects a hint of a smile when he speaks. “I’m glad you did, sweetheart. I…” he hesitates, and a gloved hand reaches out to pull her out of the tiny patch of moonlight and into the shadows of the grand, ornate pillars that hold up the museum. “I wasn’t sure if you would, after all this time, but I had to see you. Had to know how you’re doing.”

Not for the first time, Rey wishes she could at least hear his real voice. The growl of the modulator is so at odds with the sincerity of his words, a harsh reminder of reality when all she wants is to escape into a softer, kinder dream world.

But that’s never been in the cards for them, no matter how many pretty words Kylo whispers into his modulator, so Rey huffs out a bitter laugh and shakes her head at him instead as she pulls her hand out of his grasp. “ _Me_? You’re the one who disappeared for three months! Kylo, I thought– I didn’t know _what_ to think, but people were saying that… that…”

That he’d finally gotten what he deserved. That the world would be a better place without him. That they should all be glad to be rid of him and his knights.

Rey has tuned out op-eds and news shows for the last three months, choosing instead to dwell in the corners of the internet where everyone seemed equally concerned even though they’d never met Kylo at all, even though there was no way they felt the way she did, _does_ –

“You could’ve let me known you’re alive,” she murmurs, dropping her eyes to the ground. “You could’ve done at least that.”

The modulator crackles, distorting his sharp intake of breath.

“I’m sorry. Things have been… difficult,” Kylo says with a sigh, yet another unpleasant burst of sound rushing past his mask. “Difficult and different, and I wasn’t really thinking, I _couldn’t_ think at all–”

His hand rises to his head, and then falls back down. Rey’s noticed he does that sometimes, especially when he’s agitated or stressed or embarrassed, and all it does is make her want to take that stupid mask off and run her hands through his hair the way he’s itching to do.

It’d be flat from the helmet, she imagines, and so soft in her hands–

But that’s something for a kinder world. In this world Rey sets the urge aside to focus on his words instead, like a crow catching sight of something shiny for it to chase after and fixate on.

“What happened? Where have you been? Where are the rest of the Knights? Why haven’t you–”

Kylo laughs and shakes his head at her, the way he always does whenever she gets all ‘reporter-y’ – his word, not hers – on him. “Nice try, sweetheart.”

Rey shrugs, unrepentant as ever. He can’t expect her to stop doing her job just because of their unlikely friendship, just as she’s never expected him to stop doing his – even when it involves more bloodshed than she’s comfortable with.

“I’ve lost more sleep in the past three months than I have in the past three _years_ , Kylo,” she tells him sharply, unashamedly. “I think I deserve an explanation–”

“Don’t you have work in the morning?” he interrupts, and even in its distorted form Rey can tell his voice is just a little too innocent. “It’s getting late, Rey. You should go home and get some sleep.”

She crosses her arms and scowls at him. “Are you serious?”

“Always,” Kylo intones with a nod of his helmet. “Now go home, sweetheart. I’ll make sure you get there safely.”

It’s not fair that he always makes her that promise no matter how their conversation ends, and it’s _definitely_ not fair that she immediately softens at his familiar parting words, first spoken so long ago–

 _I should get going,_ she’d told him then, just a young reporter reluctant to step away from a living, breathing mystery that might prove to be her big break if only she could crack him. _It’s a long walk home, and I’m alone._

And instantly, without a moment’s hesitation, the words had spilled past his lips: _you’re not alone. I’ll make sure you get home safely, I promise._

Rey might not know much about Kylo Ren – might not know _anything_ about him, actually – but on this, at least, she knows she can always trust him.

“Fine,” she gives in with a huff, pointing a warning finger at him. “But this conversation isn’t over yet.”

“It never is,” Kylo agrees, and the cheery note in his voice pulls a reluctant smile out of her. “Good night, Rey.”

“Good night, Kylo,” she whispers in return, and in the blink of an eye he’s disappeared – up into the sky or on the roof or maybe even to a different dimension; you never know with Kylo Ren.

Rey shakes her head at the thought and sets out into the night, knowing she has nothing to fear.

* * *

A week after her unfortunate first meeting with Ben Snoke, Amilyn calls Rey in for a meeting.

Thankfully it’s after hours, which allows her to wait until the news team has left for the day before she climbs the spiral staircase up to the second floor of the converted warehouse. Amilyn’s office is all the way at the end, and Rey can’t help but sneak a glimpse at Ben’s office as she walks past.

His door is closed, but the office is entirely dark. Empty, just like she’d hoped it would be.

Bolstered by that reassurance, Rey picks up the pace and quickly finds herself seated opposite her editor-in-chief, documents and pictures fanned out across the desk between them. She’s been discreetly looking into a chain of strip clubs for months now, trying to prove that it’s all just a front for the Guavian Death Gang, but her investigation has slowed down in recent months.

In her defense, it’s unexpectedly hard to focus on strip clubs when you’re constantly worrying about a certain mercenary and his possible death. Amilyn had been very understanding about the whole thing, even if Rey had never actually _said_ anything about it to her, and had encouraged her to focus on fleshing out her cover as a mere listicle writer first.

But now that Kylo is alive and well and she’s written at least a dozen posts about _the top ten hidden gems in Coruscant City_ , Rey is itching to get back to work.

“So you’re going back on stakeout duty?” Amilyn asks, worry lines forming between her brows as she picks up a picture of the club’s back door.

Rey nods. “It’s been a while, so I figured I should see if anything’s changed and familiarize myself with things before I try to go in. I’m thinking of starting next Monday–”

The door opens without warning, and both women immediately spring into action, sweeping all of the papers strewn across Amilyn’s desk into a haphazard pile.

“Amilyn, we need to talk–” Ben declares just as their boss drops a write-up about a recent ‘influencers’ summit’ – whatever the hell that is – on top of the pile, effectively hiding Rey’s work from view.

Ben comes to a screeching halt, and there it is again: that wide-eyed look of sheer horror over having to share a space with her. “Oh. I didn’t realize you’re still here.”

Rey quickly gets to her feet and sweeps the pile into her arms, summit write-up and all. “I was just about to leave,” she announces coolly without sparing him a look. “Amilyn, I’ll have that article about diving spots done by tomorrow night, if that’s okay?”

She doesn’t know anything about diving, but during times like these Rey tends to just go with the first thing to come to her panicked mind. So diving it is.

Amilyn nods as she plasters on her signature warm smile. “That’s more than okay, Rey. It’s just what we’re looking for, and I’m sure you’ll be able to execute it flawlessly–”

 _Fine_ , so maybe Amilyn’s laying it on a little too thick, but that absolutely does not justify the little snort that escapes Ben.

Rey turns to him with a scowl. “What?” she demands, clutching her papers close to her chest as she pins Ben with a glare, desperately fighting against her body to _not_ react to the amused little twitch of his lips.

“Nothing,” he claims a little too quickly, barely meeting her eye for two seconds before he moves forward and settles into her abandoned seat. “Now if you’re done here, I really do need to speak to our editor. In private.”

“Fine,” Rey mutters before she bids Amilyn a good night and pointedly does _not_ do the same for Ben. Screw him; he deserves the worst of nights for having the audacity to be so attractive yet so awful. Rey very nearly slams the door behind her, but manages to rein in the urge at the very last second. She _does_ , however, stomp her way back to her desk, and maybe she bangs around her table for a bit before she finally slams her drawer shut, documents safely locked away, and allows some of the tension to drain away.

What even _was_ that snort? What an asshole; he probably thinks he’s better than everyone here just because he writes about ‘real’ news–

With a frustrated growl, Rey kicks the thought out of her mind and focuses on work instead.

It’s only twenty minutes past six, so traffic is definitely still hell. Rey figures she might as well stick around and throw together that diving article; it’s half of what Amilyn is paying her for, after all.

The next time Rey looks up from her computer screen, an hour has passed and someone is clearing their throat behind her. She turns back for a curious look and immediately suppresses a groan.

Because of fucking course it’s Ben Snoke, looking down at her with furrowed brows.

“Why are you wasting your time on this shit?”

If Rey were standing, she would have taken several steps backward out of sheer _shock_. “Excuse me?”  she demands, voice colored by indignation and anger.

Ben, miraculously, does not back down. In fact, it’s almost as if he hasn’t noticed her reaction at all, because he pushes on and steers the conversation into an entirely unexpected direction. “You’re an amazing investigative reporter – or so I’ve heard,” he quickly adds before Rey can even begin to process the idea that Ben Snoke might know her work. “Any serious news team in the city would be lucky to have you. So why are you here posting about the same ten Instagram trends day in and day out?”

He seems… genuinely puzzled, Rey notes with no small amount of surprise. And maybe in any other case that would’ve softened her, and maybe under any other circumstances this would’ve been the perfect opportunity to ask if his team could use another reporter, but right here, right now… Ben was already dangerously close to the truth when he pushed his way into Amilyn’s office unannounced. She can’t let him get any closer.

“It’s a brave new world, Ben,” she huffs at him, going for a sneer and failing miserably as soon as she catches sight of a flash of hurt in his eyes. “Try to keep up. Escapism gets hits. Sensationalism gets hits. _The same ten Instagram trends_ over and over again gets hits. But good old boring investigative work? There’s a reason newsrooms are growing smaller and smaller all around the country.”

And before Ben can defend his craft, _their_ craft–

“Besides, that’s none of your business,” Rey states with a note of finality as she turns her back on him, returning her attention to her screen.

She waits for the hairs on the back of her neck to go down, for the odd prickle of awareness she feels around him to fade away.

But Ben lingers, and finally he lets out a heavy sigh. “You’re right,” he mumbles, and out of the corner of her eye Rey spots him placing a brown bag on her desk. “Here. Since you’re working late.”

She turns her head just the slightest bit, and then a little more to stare at him when she catches sight of the logo printed on the bag.

Pastries. He’s brought her pastries from the bakery around the corner.

“Um… thanks?” Rey reaches out and notes that the bag is still warm. “When did you–”

Ben sticks his hands into his pockets and fixes his eyes straight ahead, on her crowded notice board. “Breakroom,” he lies.

Rey can’t exactly call him out on it – what is she supposed to do, accuse him of taking the trouble of getting fresh food for her? – but she’s too puzzled to let it slide. “Wow,” she pretends to play along, “you guys just happen to keep fresh pastries on hand?”

To his credit, Ben remains nonchalant. “This floor might have healthy, balanced meal-prep lunches,” he shrugs, “but we have all the good stuff.” A pause, and then, a little quieter: “You should come up and check it out sometime.”

She’s been to the upstairs breakroom at least four times, and can confirm that they do _not_ have ‘all the good stuff’. In fact, on most days the news people can be found hanging around the downstairs breakroom, hoping to swipe something from the lifestyle team’s latest video shoot or cooking experiment.

“Maybe I will,” Rey says, keeping her tone even.

Ben withdraws his hands from his pockets as he nods. “Okay. Great. Yeah.”

A painfully awkward silence settles over them then, but just as Rey’s about to reach for the bag and ask if he’d like to share something – it’s only polite to offer, since he’s the one who went and got them – Ben steps back and promptly turns on his heel. “I’ll just… I’ll just get out of your hair now.”

Rey reaches for him without thought. “Ben, wait!” she requests as her fingers wrap around his wrist.

When he turns he’s got that same look from that first morning again, this time focused firmly upon her hand on his. Rey’s cheeks heat up as she quickly lets go of him, and if her heart falls a little at his reaction it’s nobody’s business but her own.

“What…” Ben falters, clears his throat, and finally tears his eyes away from his hand to look at her for all of five seconds. “What is it?”

“I just…” Rey takes a deep breath, and offers him a smile. “Thanks,” she says, leaving it at that.

Slowly, hesitantly, Ben smiles in return. It’s a small thing, a barely-there curve of his lips, but his eyes are warm and bright as they hold hers, the first time she’s ever seen them that way, and oh fuck, Rey’s going to think about this a lot now, isn’t she?

“You’re welcome,” he murmurs, still smiling. “Don’t… don’t stay too late, Rey. Good night.”

This time, she lets him leave.

“Good night, Ben,” Rey whispers to his retreating back, wondering what the hell just happened.

But hey, at least now she’s roughly 80% sure Ben Snoke doesn’t actually hate her for no damn reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was originally meant to be done by last week, but then life got in the way as it always does. And it was originally meant to be a one-shot, but then it got out of hand as my stories always do. This one especially strayed further and further away from the plan with every word I wrote, but I hope it's still somewhat decent.
> 
> Hoping to update again this weekend and then sometime mid-next week for a third and final time, but we'll see how that goes. You know what they say about life and the best-laid plans...
> 
> As always, thank you for reading and I hope you liked it. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment; I'd love to know what you guys think about this so far!
> 
> And once again: happy birthday, Nancy! <3
> 
> [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


	2. this looks like a job for... ben snoke???

Enough has changed about The Outpost in the last two months to put Rey on edge.

The skeevy club looks the same as always, but it’s the unfamiliar faces slipping out through the back entrance and disappearing into the dark alley that have Rey on edge as she hides in the bushes across the street and strains her eyes to make out distinctive features through her crappy Amazon binoculars. Even worse than the unfamiliar faces are the familiar ones, the ones she’s only ever seen in dossiers detailing crimes that make her stomach turn, and it’s almost enough to make her pack everything up and rush back to the safety of her home.

But this is what she’s been waiting for, this is what she’s spent the last six months looking for–

Her blood turns to ice as her ears discern a rustling of leaves from behind her, and Rey reaches for the knife in her boot just as a gloved hand claps over her mouth.

“Still playing Lois Lane, I see,” Kylo chuckles in her ear, voice distorted by that awful modulator of his. Rey allows herself a sigh of relief before she nips at the fleshy part of his palm and turns around to greet him with a scowl.

“Sadly you’re no Superman,” she huffs, willing her heart rate to return to normal as the last bit of terror drains away. Would it really kill him to just announce his presence? Or maybe have the decency to approach her rather than drop out of the sky with no warning?

Kylo shakes his head as he settles in next to her, heedless of the grass stains forming on his suit. “Hey, I might be getting there.”

Rey sets aside her binoculars in favor of studying him. The mask gives nothing away, it never does, but that just means she’s spent the past two years learning to read every other bit of him. The way his shoulders tense when he’s being particularly vulnerable; the way his fingers curl into and then away from his palm when he’s frustrated or hesitant or even scared; the way his head droops sometimes because even if she can’t see him he can see her, and there are times when he just can’t look her in the eye–

“Is… is that what you’re doing? Are you one of the good guys now?”

It feels _wrong_ , reducing things to black and white, good and bad after everything she’s learned about him since the day they first met. To suggest that Kylo was bad before, that he was ever _entirely_ bad… it’s way off the mark, and Rey knows that better than anyone. But she can’t think of any other way to describe this sudden shift in his MO, allegations of murder suddenly replaced by acts of vigilantism since his return a week ago.

Kylo shrugs, his eyes – well, his mask – fixed firmly on the exit she’d been so closely monitoring just minutes ago. When he speaks, his voice comes out in a low rumble she’s learned to recognize as a whisper. “Everyone loves a good redemption arc, don’t they?”

He keeps his eyes on the club even as Rey stares at him so intently she’s almost surprised she hasn’t burned a hole into the side of his helmet. But she can’t help herself, entranced by this puzzle just like any other.

Because here stands – or squats – Kylo Ren, leader of the world’s most dangerous team of operatives, a five-person superhuman team capable of regime change overnight, of broad daylight assassinations, of heists that should not be physically possible. And now suddenly, after a three-month disappearance he _still_ won’t talk to her about, he’s a lone wolf dropping off wanted criminals at the local precinct’s doorstep and… ‘liberating’ confidential records leading to the downfall of key players in the city.

He’s always puzzled her but this… this is new. This is more than anything that has ever come before, than everything that has ever come before combined, and Rey can’t even begin to make sense of it, of _him_.

Eventually, Kylo turns to her. “What?” he asks, and Rey hates that she _thinks_ she hears a smile in his voice but can’t see it, can’t see him. In the early days she’d been desperate to figure out who the man under the mask was for all the reasons one would expect of a journalist, but then that desperation had turned to frustration when she couldn’t put a face (or even a real voice) to her midnight fantasies, and eventually that frustration had morphed into unreasonable hurt as the days turned into weeks turned into months turned into years and _still_ he refused to share anything of himself with her.

And it’s only gotten worse since his return.

“What made you change your mind?”

Kylo is quiet for the longest time, and with every passing second of silence a lump grows in her throat and sits heavy on her chest. Will he ever tell her anything again? Did he even tell her that much to begin with? Throughout their… whatever the hell this has been, Rey has eagerly taken every tiny crumb he’s tossed her way in the hopes of eventually puzzling him out, and all along she’s been too busy slotting the tiny pieces into place to ever take a step back and realize she barely has anything.

“I didn’t,” Kylo finally says, and his next words are so predictably vague Rey can’t even bring herself to feel disappointed. “I just finally became my own boss.”

But then who was the boss before? Why did she not know there _was_ one? The whole world thinks he’s the one in charge, he’s the one pulling the strings and leading the rest of the Knights – and where are the rest, anyway? Did they decide not to come back from their break? Were they the reason _for_ the break?

She opens her mouth even before she’s picked out a question to begin with, only for Kylo to hush her and pull her down to the ground.

“I think that’s enough investigative work for tonight, sweetheart,” he says as gunshots pierce the silence of the night and trigger a symphony of chaos.

This, at least, is familiar to her – yet another one of the many little skirmishes that frequently break out among the lower-ranking members of the gang who like to hang around the club. Rey doesn’t even need to look up to know that no one of interest is involved here, or even on the scene; all of her targets know better than to hang around such a spectacle.

Kylo tugs at her arm and motions for her to follow his lead, staying low to the ground just in case. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your car.”

Rey turns back to gather her equipment only to find that he’s already handled it, her ratty canvas backpack bouncing against one shoulder with every move of his arms.

“No car tonight,” she whispers back as they crawl away. “I took an Uber.”

He stills and turns back to stare at her. Rey can almost imagine the look of exasperation on his face – a featureless one, composed of ever-changing eyes and lips and noses. “ _Rey_ ,” he groans, and the note of concern he can’t quite hide even with the modulator squeezes her heart in the most painful way.

“It’s less risky than having someone recognize my car.”

Kylo concedes her point with a huff, and they continue to crawl until he deems them a safe distance away. “Let’s get you out of here and somewhere safe enough for an Uber driver,” he says as he helps Rey to her feet, and she brushes away blades of grass stuck to his front to buy herself some time.

The offer’s been on the tip of her tongue for months now, and one of Rey’s greatest regrets when he disappeared and she didn’t know if she’d ever see him again was not just blurting it out when she had the chance to. But now that she’s here, and he’s here, and she can feel how warm he is even through the leather of his suit…

She takes a deep breath, forces herself to look up at him. “Or you could walk me home.”

His sharp inhale crackles through the modulator but he doesn’t look away, and even through the mask Rey can feel his eyes on hers. Lately she’s been thinking they might be brown. Not the dull kind, but a rich, deep tapestry of mahogany and chocolate with little flecks of amber, dark but expressive, stern but kind, so easy to misread until you get close enough to realize–

Kylo drags her back before she can get too distracted. “Would you invite me up for a nightcap?”

Blood pounding in her ears, Rey forces a laugh as she swats his bicep and ignores the little thrill that runs up her spine from smacking against a solid wall of muscle. “I’ll have you know I’m a third date kind of girl,” she protests even as her lips twitch with a smile and she feels herself leaning into him.

A big, warm hand curls around her waist as he laughs. If she could just hear him laugh for real, just once, without that goddamn device… Rey thinks she might die happy.

“I’d say we’re well past our thirtieth at this point, sweetheart.”

It’s ridiculous, really, that she made it through the entirety of her teen years without once experiencing that heart-skips-a-beat, butterflies-in-stomach sensation all her friends gushed about only for it to hit her now.

“So we _are_ –?”

A drop of water splattering against her nose silences her, and Rey looks up at the dark sky just in time for the heavens to open up and unleash a storm _none_ of her seven weather apps predicted. “What the hell?”

Kylo slips his hand into hers. “Come on, let’s make a run for it.”

Alternatively he could just do that disappearing thing he does so well, as long as he takes her with him and brings them somewhere dry, but before Rey can suggest that he’s tugging at her hand and breaking out into a run she can’t help but keep up with. At some point the sight of Kylo Ren running in the rain and turning to her every minute or so with a quiet laugh makes the experience bearable, and she decides to just go with it until they find themselves standing in front of a closed café with a tiny roofed patio.

Raindrops are tracing little paths down the curve of Kylo’s helmet and dripping down onto his suit, and for some reason the sight brings to mind the image of a drenched cat. To his credit, he doesn’t react when a breathless Rey suddenly doubles over with laughter, just waits until she eventually straightens up again before he brings one gloved hand to her face and brushes her clumpy, wet hair away.

All lingering humor evaporates into the air as she stands stock still, holding her breath as his hand slowly moves down to cup her cheek.

Rey darts her eyes down to where his lips would be as her heart rate suddenly triples, looks back to where she thinks his eyes are as her throat goes dry. The same brown eyes from before, from her dreams, flash in her mind and she finally recognizes them just as her eyes begin to flutter, gives Kylo the tiniest of nods and parts her lips even as something in her hesitates–

He caresses her cheek with his thumb, and then drops his hand back to his side. “Call a car. I’ll make sure you get home safely.”

She blinks, eyes still stuck on his mask as he presses something – her soaking wet backpack – into her hands. “Wait, what–”

Kylo’s gone with a single leap into the night sky, black leather impossible to pick out in the darkness.

And Rey, Rey is left alone to deal with the same old frustration and loneliness she’s taken to bed with her for the past two years.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks pass without any sign of Kylo at their usual haunts. She’d be wary of another months-long disappearance, but every other day her Twitter feed is spammed by pictures of him going about his vigilante business all over town. He’s saving little old ladies from muggers, he’s dropping off criminals at the precinct’s doorstep, he’s sneaking into top-floor offices to ‘liberate’ incriminating evidence… he’s everywhere except their usual haunts, running into everyone but her. Part of Rey – a huge part of her, really – wants to feel angry and betrayed and _sad_ , but… but she’s got better things to focus on.

Like the fact that the top dogs in the Guavian Death Gang are now hanging around The Outpost. Plus her article about imposter syndrome has now been trending for three days straight. And she’s pretty sure Ben’s been leaving muffins on her desk every morning.

That last one is on her mind as she wraps up another late-night meeting with Amilyn after her third stake-out – sans Kylo Ren, who apparently can’t be bothered anymore. “Hey, Amilyn?” Rey hesitates at her editor’s door, hugging her files close to her chest.

“Yes?”

She turns away from the door and walks back into the office. “Can I… can I ask you about Ben?”

Amilyn gives her a knowing smile. “He’s quite a looker, isn’t he?”

Oh yes, so much so that her subconscious has decided to give dream Kylo his eyes and hair, but there’s no need to tell her editor _that._ “No, that’s not– well, I mean, yes, but– it’s not about that,” she declares firmly, slumping into her previous seat even as Amilyn raises one delicate brow in skepticism. “It’s just… when I first started here, I heard some stuff about him. A lot of stuff, really, from almost everyone here. But now that he’s actually here, none of that really matches up.”

“Oh?” Amilyn asks, leaning forward as her eyes gleam with interest.

“He’s… he’s sweet,” Rey mumbles, looking down at her hands as her cheeks heat up. “And he does these things… just little things, really, but…”

“Ben…” her editor sighs after a moment of silence. “Ben’s never been the friendliest person, but he has so much to offer once he warms up to someone; I wish the rest of the office could see that. But I _will_ say there has been a change since his father passed away.”

“His…” Rey gapes at her. “His father passed away?”

Amilyn frowns. “That’s the reason he was on leave, dear. I mean, we all referred to it as family business, but I thought everyone knew.”

“Well, no one told _me_.” But then again, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you just throw into casual conversation, and it’s not like Rey had ever asked. She’d been told on her first day that the news editor was taking some personal time off, and that had been that. “Oh my god, poor Ben.”

“At the risk of sounding indelicate… I honestly think this might be one of the best things that ever happened to him.”

Rey finds herself staring at her boss, completely speechless.

“It sounds awful, I know,” Amilyn hurries to explain, “but they never had the best relationship. In fact, Ben used to come talk to me all the time because he had no one else to turn to and his father was so overbearing it drove him up the wall. But ever since he came back, he’s been… lighter. Freer, I think, and maybe even happier.” She offers Rey a shrug. “But that’s just my opinion.”

“Right,” Rey says faintly, her mind elsewhere as she tries to process this information and make it fit with the rest of the puzzles pieces she’s collected so far. So Ben had a bad relationship with his father, but it’d taken him three months to deal with his death. And she’s heard all kinds of things about him since she first joined Raddus, but maybe all of that is outdated now that Amilyn says he’s changed? And are the muffins – and the shy little smiles he gives her when they catch each other’s eye – part of that new change?

Hell, the first day they met, when they bumped into each other and he so rudely walked away – had she been too quick to judge? Maybe he just wasn’t prepared to talk to anyone yet, maybe he was overwhelmed by being back at work after so long, maybe he was thinking about his father…

As always, Ben Snoke remains a giant question mark in her mind. Everything about him – from the sudden change in his behavior towards her to his appearance in her dreams – confuses the hell out of Rey. She gets up and bids Amilyn good night in a daze, completely distracted by her reframing of every interaction they’ve ever had. It’s only when she hears the clatter of someone dropping a spoon into the sink that Rey looks up and sees a light on in the upstairs breakroom.

Somehow, she knows who she’ll find in there before she even decides to check it out.

“Another after-hours meeting with Amilyn?” Ben asks as she appears in the doorway, large hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee as he leans against the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, I, um… couldn’t wait to get her approval on this article about… poisonous butterflies?” Rey offers weakly, internally cursing her complete inability to lie for the thousandth time. This is exactly why she’s hesitant to move into the undercover work part of her investigation.

Ben stares her down.

“What?” she demands defensively even as her skin prickles under his observation.

“You’re hiding something, Rey Niima,” he announces casually as he lifts his cup to his lips.

Rey’s heart stops. “Am _not_ ,” she shoots back unthinkingly, only for Ben to laugh and shake his head at her.

“I saw you, you know. The other night at The Outpost. You need to be more careful.”

Oh, this is bad. This is so, _so_ bad. “How did you– who else– wait.” Her panic comes to a screeching halt as she narrows her eyes at him. “What were _you_ doing at a strip club on the wrong side of town?”

“I–” Ben hesitates, falters, falls silent for a beat as Rey watches his throat work. “Why else?” he finally says with a rueful little grin on his lips, but–

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Rey confidently refutes as she walks further into the breakroom.

Ben laughs, a curt little puff of air that’s more self-deprecating than amused. “I’m a single, straight man, Rey. I’m pretty sure it makes all the sense in the world–”

Rey shakes her head. “You do realize there are at least ten people in this office who’d jump at the chance to get with you, right?” she asks with a frown. Actually, now that she thinks about it, Ben probably doesn’t spend nearly enough time with them to see the way Poe’s always checking his ass out or hear the things Jess says about climbing him like a tree. “You don’t actually have to–”

“What about you?” Ben asks abruptly as a flush creeps up his neck and stains his cheeks pink. Oh. He’s _shy_. That’s… strangely adorable, made all the more so by the fact that she catches sight of one red ear when he runs a hand through his hair.

“Me?” Rey blinks. Oh. The strip club. “You know, I just happened to be in the area–”

Ben cuts her off almost immediately, and she can’t even blame him; in a lifetime of bad lies, that one might actually be bad enough to make it into the Hall of Fame. “No, not that. I meant… what about you? Would you… would _you_ jump at the chance?”

For the second time in less than ten minutes, Rey’s heart stops.

But this time… this time it’s not ice-cold fear that fills her veins and lungs. This time, it’s butterflies in her stomach.

“Oh.”

Ben sets down his coffee without looking away from her. “Or not. You don’t have to, you know, _jump_ at the chance, just maybe consider it–”

“ _Oh_.”

This is… this is unexpected. This is new. Worst of all, this is _nice_ , and Rey can feel herself starting to smile, and _how dare_ her stomach get butterflies over someone other than–

“Never mind,” Ben mumbles, looking down at his feet. “Just forget it. Sorry. That was stupid of me, I’m just… I mean, I’m no Kylo Ren–”

He gives Rey as wide a breadth as possible as he walks past her, and all she can do is watch, paralyzed by the mention of Kylo, by the reminder–

The reminder of what? Of how she’d put herself out there only to be left wanting? Of dreams that’ll never be anything more? Of _almost_ -moments that he always shies away from at the last second? Of two years of waiting, and hoping, and _dreaming_ like a foolish, deluded child scaring off one prospective family after another because she couldn’t go with them, couldn’t leave, not before her real family came back–

No. _No._ Rey’s ruined her life once before waiting on a dream, and she swore to herself years ago that she’d never make that mistake again.

So she turns around and lunges after Ben, wraps her fingers around his wrist and _tugs_.

“You’re no vigilante superhuman,” she agrees, voice weak and wavering but growing more certain with every word, with every passing moment, “but you’re something better.”

Ben turns around and looks at her with stars in his eyes, and it _hurts_ because all she’s ever wanted was for Kylo to look at her that way but she doesn’t know if he even looks at her at all, will never know how he looks at her or how he feels about her or _anything_.

But Ben… Ben looks at her like she’s a little miracle, and Ben leaves muffins at her desk, and Ben stops by sometimes to teasingly rib her for her latest listicle.

Ben is real, and here, and he wants her. He _wants_ her.

So Rey takes a deep breath, and lets go of everything she’s held onto for so long. “Kylo… Kylo Ren’s great and all, but he’s… he’s a fantasy, isn’t he? He’s like a Marvel superhero or a Disney prince, something everyone wants, something out of a dream. It’s a nice dream,” she acknowledges, taking a second to remember it fondly before she shatters it to pieces.

“But that’s all it’ll ever be,” Rey finally admits to herself, and even as a part of her dies there’s a bigger part that can finally _breathe_ again.

“But–” Ben begins to say just as Rey steps closer and moves her hand up to his forearm.

“He’s a fantasy,” she says again, and the words come easier this time. “But you…you’re something better, Ben. You’re _real_.”

Ben stares at her for the longest time. He’s holding his breath, she can tell, and he’s looking at her like she’s the single most terrifying thing he’s ever seen, and his bare skin under her fingertips is better than any dream she’s ever had.

And then finally he speaks, words spilling past him in a single breath. “Would you like to go out sometime?”

Rey smiles, and slowly, hesitantly, so does Ben.

“How about this Saturday?”

* * *

Three days before her date with Ben, Rey goes on one final stake-out. It’s the last one, she promises herself, no more getting scared or backing down after this, it’s high time for her to move on to stage two–

A hand covers her mouth.

“I see someone’s back for more.”

This time, Rey swats his hand away and scowls at him.

“And I see someone’s finally deigned to grace me with his presence,” Rey bites back, pausing just long enough to give him a scowl before she turns back to her target.

She told herself she wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t let Kylo catch on to any changes in her, but now that she’s buried all… _pleasant_ thoughts about him deep, deep down, there’s nothing to distract her from the nights she wasted hanging around a closed museum, waiting and hoping and worrying, only to finally trudge home with disappointment weighing her down…

When Kylo steps closer, her throat fills with unexpected bitterness. It’s not his fault that she’d allowed herself to be a delusional, pining fool for two years, not his fault that she’d taken his obviously casual flirting as something more, but all the same she hates him for being able to make her feel things just by stepping into her personal space.

“Rey, about last time–”

She tenses and grits her teeth, keeps her eyes fixed on the club. “Don’t–”

And that’s when The Outpost explodes into a million pieces of flaming shrapnel, a significant amount of which seems to be headed in her direction.

Kylo pulls her behind him before any of the burning projectiles can make contact, and within seconds he’s sweeping her into a bridal carry and getting them the hell out of there. He stares straight ahead, completely focused on navigating the darkness at high speed, leaving Rey to look up at the harsh angles of his mask as a lump forms in her throat.

Their first meeting had gone a little something like this too. A disgruntled former employee of First Order Funds had threatened to blow up the entire financial district, and the city watched on in slack-jawed shock as the Knights of Ren, previously spotted only in grainy security footage in the dead of night, showed up in the middle of the day to handle the threat. Most people were happy to watch the event play out in the safety of their homes, news chopper footage streaming live on their phones, but of course Rey hadn’t been prepared to let this chance pass her by.

While the police set up an evacuation parameter and enforced it, Rey stealthily crept closer and closer to the action until finally she was just ten feet away from Armitage Hux’s turned back, half-hidden behind a car as she fiddled with her phone and looked up–

Only to find Kylo Ren looking at her. Well, at the time it had been hard to tell, what with the mask and all, but somehow Rey just knew he was looking directly at her – which is probably why he moved towards her the second Hux hit the detonator and quickly scooped her up before he set himself to the impossible task of outrunning the flames that were rapidly consuming one closely-packed building after another.

As soon as he deemed them far enough, he set her down and called her an idiot, and she poked him in the chest and called him a monster, and they’ve been something like friends ever since.

Or more.

Rey loses herself in her memories and only comes to when Kylo starts snapping his fingers in front of her face. They’re far from the club now – she can’t even see the fire – and at some point he must’ve set her down because she’s back on her own two feet, a safe distance away from him.

“Rey, are you even listening? You need to stop doing this, it’s too dangerous–”

She bristles at that. “This is my _job_ , Kylo. And you don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do,” Rey states with a scowl as she crosses her arms over her chest. The _nerve_ of him, honestly. _Too dangerous_. If it hadn’t been for him distracting her, she would’ve spotted the bomb and gotten the hell out of there in time. Perfectly fine, _and_ with her scoop, _and_ all without Kylo Ren.

Who softens at her words and curls a warm hand around her waist. “Sweetheart, please. I just… I don’t know how I’d live with myself if something were to happen to you.”

Even through the modulator she can hear the sincerity in his voice; even through the mask she can see the concern in his eyes. It’s everything she’s ever dreamed of…

And it’s about two weeks too late.

Rey shrugs his arm off and steps away, steels herself for her next words. “You… you shouldn’t touch me like that anymore. Or say stuff like that.”

Kylo steps forward. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Rey nods. “I’m… I’m seeing someone now. Well, I mean, not yet, our first date is on Saturday–”

“How exciting,” he says, and the truly awful thing about it is that he _means_ it – she can hear the smile in his voice, the teasing note that isn’t all too different from the one her friends had used to react to her news.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does – the realization that Kylo really doesn’t care, that maybe he never cared at all. Why should it matter to her, after all, when she’s already let go of him and is truly, genuinely excited for her date with Ben?

“Yeah, so, um… this, us–” Except there was never even as _us_ to begin with, was there? “– we should stop. I just, I really like this guy, and I’d hate for him to see pictures of me running around with masked men in the middle of the night, you know?”

The only thing that assuages her guilt is that she really, truly means that. No matter how confused she is about her feelings right now, she knows with absolute certainty that she would _never_ want to hurt Ben that way.

“I understand,” Kylo assures her. He’s much more serious this time, but there’s still that hint of a smile in his voice, completely devoid of disappointment or jealousy or hurt…

But that’s not what Rey wants, anyway. She’s not some high-schooler trying to use jealousy to bait her crush into making a move. She’s a grown woman setting boundaries with her… work friend? Acquaintance? Almost-lover?

It’s all too much to think about, especially here and now. “Thanks,” she tells Kylo. “Okay, I… I’m just going to go now.”

He nods. “Get home safe, sweetheart.”

She always does. _He_ always makes sure she does, and something tells Rey that’s not about to change. After all, as far as he’s concerned nothing’s changed between them.

But then, just as she’s about to turn away–

“Rey?” Kylo reaches for her wrist, his voice unusually gentle. “He’s… he’s a lucky guy, your date. I hope it works out for you two.”

 _He’s not you,_ Rey almost says. _He’ll never be you… but I’m starting to be okay with that._ Instead, she gently withdraws her hand from Kylo’s and gives him a small smile. “Yeah, me too.”

A moment passes between them, one last chance for either of them to say something.

“Good night, Rey.”

And then it’s over.

Rey nods and turns her back on him. “Goodbye, Kylo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, it's been a week. In case y'all were wondering, _this_ is why I usually stick with one-shots.
> 
> Another reason I stay away from multi-chapters: more opportunities to mess up and ruin the story! I'm really uncertain about this chapter and how fast things are moving (and that's _after_ I adjusted my original outline and tried to slow things down), so I really, really hope I haven't messed up. Oh well, in any case: it'll all be over soon, friends. Only one chapter left!
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading and I hope you liked it. Also, comments make my day so feel free to leave one of those.


	3. truth, justice, and the reylo way

The first time Ben calls her sweetheart, she nearly cries.

Everything about the moment – strong arms holding her close, warm lips brushing against her temple, sheer contentment running through her veins – feels like something out of a dream.

But then his words hit her, and so does a painful reminder.

“Good night, sweetheart,” Ben whispers into the night, and the words are right but the voice isn’t – except it is, _he_ is, they’ve been dating for a month now and she’s never felt so sure about anything in her life–

Only sometimes she isn’t, and the guilt turns her blood to ice and taints everything with paranoia. For one terrible moment Rey is convinced Ben will somehow catch sight of her stricken look despite the absolute darkness in his room, will suspect that she’s still mourning a relationship that never happened with a man she never knew.

She hides her face in his neck before that can happen, presses a kiss to the hollow of his throat and focuses on nothing but the comforting familiarity of his scent, his arms wrapped around her, his chest moving up and down in time with hers. This, this is better than a hundred dreams of a faceless man, better than any hallucination she could’ve come up with or future she could’ve imagined. Ben is real, and here, and _hers_ , and–

That night she dreams of Kylo anyway, the way she has nearly every single night since the last time she saw him, since the last time anyone had seen him.

He’s alive, that much she knows. After all, her gut feeling had been right about that the last time.

But anything beyond that gets added to the growing mountain of mysteries standing in her way. He’s proving to be just as elusive as the Guavian Death Gang, scattered to the winds after the attack on the Outpost. _Gang rivalry,_ the police tell her with a shrug and advise her to let go of it; _dead end_ , Amilyn declares a week after the explosion and gently suggests she move on to something new.

The problem is, Rey’s never been any good at letting go of anything – not her parents, not her target, not her… her friend.

All of it weighs so heavily on her that two days after _the sweetheart thing_ , as she’s taken to calling it in her mind, Rey finds herself coming clean to Ben - about half of the situation, at least.

“So… I’ve got a meeting with Amilyn next Tuesday,” Ben announces halfway through dinner, the both of them seated at his breakfast nook. “We might be doing some spring cleaning.”

“Budget cuts?” Rey hazards a guess through a forkful of beef and broccoli, long past the point of self-consciousness. It’s hard to bring herself to care about her table manners around a man who’d already seen her at her worst on their very first date, eyes swollen and cheeks splotchy after an unexpected walk down memory lane.

Granted, his eyes had been a little red-rimmed as well as they spent the rest of the evening bonding over being adopted, but still.

Ben had decided to accept her that night, runny nose and all, and she’s already warned him there’s no taking it back.

“No, no, we’re good,” Ben assures her instead of chastising her for speaking with her mouth full, and a silly, lovesick part of Rey sighs internally and thinks _yeah, we are._ “It’s just… I don’t see the point in keeping people who just sit at their desks all day and repackage AP updates. I mean, I know that’s the bulk of what we do,” he concedes wryly, “but… show some initiative, you know? These people are luckier than what, 80% of their fellow journalism majors? You’re working for a news department with a global readership. Some show drive, for fuck’s sake. Some talent.”

She’s happily nodding along, primarily focused on her food, until–

“Like yours.”

It’s the first time he’s actually brought the matter up since that unexpected confrontation in the office all those weeks ago. Sure, there have been teasing comments here and there about her listicles, and he laughs along with the rest of his team when Phasma breezes out of the downstairs breakroom with stolen snacks in hand and coolly announces to the office that she’s going back up because some of them have _real_ work to do around here, but Ben hasn’t actually brought up her qualifications since that first time.

“Babe…” she sighs, hoping to dissuade him from the topic. Lately it feels like all Rey does is lie – lie to the cops about why she was looking into the Outpost, lie to Amilyn about working on a new story, lie to Ben and her friends and _everyone_ about Kylo Ren – and she’s so, _so_ tired of it, especially where Ben is involved.

But he presses on. “Rey, I don’t get it. I’ve read your work, sweetheart. I know how brilliant you were even when you were just an undergrad writing for the student paper, and every single investigative piece you’ve written since then has only gotten better.”

She pushes one last piece of broccoli around her plate while Ben reaches across the table for her free hand.

“Look, your life is yours to live and I respect your choices, but I just don’t understand…”

And that’s just… that feels wrong, somehow. Ben _always_ understands, has understood since the very first moment she opened up to him more than she’s ever done with anyone else, and for this of all things to stand between them is more than Rey can take.

“I’m investigating the Guavian Death Gang,” she blurts out before she’s even aware of her decision to come clean.

At Ben’s wide eyed look and complete silence, she feels compelled to add, “Well, at least I _was_. But then the Outpost blew up and I haven’t gotten any good leads since so I’m not really sure–”

He snatches his hand back.

“Do you have a _death wish_?” Ben demands, hissing the last two words at her as he lunges forward in his seat and curves over half the table. “Jesus Christ, Rey, I figured you were going after that lowlife Plutt and his henchmen or something, but the fucking Gang itself? Do you _know_ what they do to people who ask questions? Do you know what they do to people who so much as _look_ at them the wrong–?”

“Hey, hey!” She leans in to meet Ben halfway and take his face in her hands. “ _Hey_. Calm down. Breathe, Ben. Okay? Just breathe, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Everything won’t change the fact that you’re going to get yourself _killed_ ,” he huffs at her, but sits back in his chair and quiets down anyway.

Rey crosses her arms. “Stop that, okay? I know it’s risky, I know what I’m getting myself into, but this is my _job_ , Ben. And it’s not like I’m recklessly rushing in, guns blazing–”

“No, you’re just casually hanging around their secret headquarters,” Ben mutters.

He’d only ever seen her there _once_ , Rey wants to remind him, and who’s to say that wasn’t the only time? Besides, she still doesn’t know why _he_ was in the area too that night. But given the ridiculous lie Ben had come up with the first time she’d asked, Rey doubts she’ll be getting an answer out of him anytime soon.

“Eight months ago, a girl I knew from one of my old foster homes contacted me,” Rey begins carefully, gathering her thoughts as she goes. “You know the stats – older kids don’t tend to get adopted. I got incredibly lucky when Maz picked me; Namenthe wasn’t as fortunate.”

It still sends chills down her spine sometimes, when she thinks of how unbelievably lucky she got, how easily her life could have been something else entirely.

Ben has softened now, one hand on the table twitching as if instinctively reaching for her. Rey reaches for it and gives him a small smile before she continues.

“When she aged out of the system, she started dancing at the Outpost. It’s not great, but apparently Plutt’s more of a greedy asshole than a sleaze, so she stayed put – until some of the other girls started disappearing. They were the ones dating the gang members, the ones who knew too much from one too many drunken rambles. Namenthe packed up and ran away as soon as she could, but before she disappeared for good she left me all this information. And I… Ben, I couldn’t just do _nothing_ ,” Rey tells him beseechingly, willing him to understand.

He sighs and squeezes her hand. “Of course you couldn’t.”

Rey nods. “I was freelancing at first, but then Amilyn called me in for an interview and convinced me to tell her what I was working on. She offered me a spot on your team immediately, but I told her I wanted to get to the bottom of this first – and that would be difficult if I were to join Raddus’ very recognizable news team.”

“ _Undercover,_ ” Ben murmurs to himself, voice stunned into a whisper. “All this time, the listicles and sponsored posts and all that bullshit… You were undercover.” He looks at her with something akin to awe.

“Sure,” Rey agrees easily, slightly amused by the idea. “Let’s call it that. So _now_ do you understand?”

Ben stares at her for the longest time before his free hand comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he shakes his head. “This is so ridiculously _reckless_ and dangerous but… yeah,” he says heavily, dragging a hand down his face before he looks back at her. “Yeah, I get it.”

Rey gives his hand one last squeeze before she gets up and starts gathering plates and boxes. “In any case, it hardly matters anymore. They went underground after the blast, and Amilyn’s been telling me it’s high time to drop it and move on, so–” She shrugs as she crosses the kitchen to stash their leftovers in the fridge.

When she turns around, Ben is right there, close enough for her to stumble into. He grabs her by her waist and steadies her with two warm hands curled around her hip, eyes dim even as his lips quirk into a small smile.

“As if you would ever give up on something that easily,” Ben says with a quiet little laugh. He really does know her better than he has any right to, and she smiles at the reminder. “Just… please,” he murmurs as the smile slips off his face, replaced by a look so earnest and soul-searching it _hurts_ , to be looked at like something important, something loved.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful. I don’t know what I’d do if something were to happen to you, Rey.”

The warmth in her chest turns to ice. This is… this is a hundred times worse than _the sweetheart thing_ , words so close to the ones that still haunt her dreams in a mechanical rasp–

Rey opts for her go-to strategy of hiding her face in Ben’s neck before her shiny eyes or trembling lips can give her away, wraps her arms around his waist and melts into him as she wills herself to focus on this moment and this moment only.

Ben mistakes her cowardice for reluctance, holds her tighter as his pleas grow desperate. “Please, Rey. Promise me, just promise me you’ll be careful–”

She doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve him – not when her own traitorous heart is still being torn in two directions.

“I promise,” she whispers into his neck, lips brushing against the frantic beat of his pulse, proof of his care and concern tangible in a way it never was with…

Rey closes her eyes and banishes the thought, holds Ben so close there’s no space for ghosts between them.

“I promise, baby.”

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later, Maz comes through as she always does.

“I don’t like this, child,” she warns even as she slips a scrap of paper across the sticky bar top. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“I know, Maz,” Rey says quietly as she pockets the lead.

Her former foster mother pins her with a warning glare for all of two seconds before she sighs and allows the tension to drain away. “But I know that won’t stop you. Nothing ever could.”

Rey smiles and leans across the bar to pull the older woman into a hug. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“That’s all I ask for,” Maz whispers as she pulls back. She gives Rey a small smile and gently pats her cheek. “Off you go now, my curious cat.”

The old nickname threatens to choke her up, but Maz stops her tears before they even make it to the surface.

“And make sure you’ve got that tree of a boyfriend with you the next time I see you! Reminds me a little bit of a tree _I_ used to climb when I was your age,” Maz tells her with a wink, and sends her on her way with a good laugh.

Ben probably wouldn’t have let her go as easily, but he just so happens to have another after-hours meeting with Amilyn today as they continue to restructure the news team. There’s not much he can do through text other than remind her of her promise, and Rey assures him that she hasn’t forgotten and that tonight will be completely safe, just some quick and harmless reconnaissance. With any luck, she might even beat him back to his place.

After all, this shouldn’t take too long. Maz had used the underground connections she pretends not to have in order to figure out a date and location for the gang’s first meeting since the attack, and it’s widely expected that some key players will be in attendance tonight.

As impatient as the six-week pause in her investigation has left her, Rey knows better than to run headfirst into a dangerous situation in an unfamiliar setting. So for tonight she’s back to her stakeout ways, hiding across the street as she keeps an eye on the Cantina and takes note of familiar faces illuminated by the neon signboard for all of five seconds before they disappear down the stairs leading to an underground jazz club.

Something feels off for the first thirty minutes, and Rey tells herself it’s just her sense of self-preservation belatedly kicking in, links her unease to putting herself back into a dangerous situation. It isn’t until the third time she throws a look over her shoulder that she realizes she’s waiting on a ghost, so used to another body crouched next to hers in the dark, another voice whispering exasperated warnings–

_Don’t know how I’d live with myself if–_

Now is _not_ the time.

Who knows what kind of security the gang has in this new haunt of theirs, especially in the wake of the attack on the Outpost? Rey casts pointless memories out of her mind with a violent shake of her head, replaces them instead with images of Ben pacing his living room, Ben pinching the bridge of his nose, Ben clutching his phone close and waiting for her, worrying for her.

_Don’t know what I’d do if–_

Something stirs in the back of her mind – a half-formed thought weaving between reality and dreams, a tenuous connection waiting to be made with two pins and red string. But it’s ripped away from her, a forgotten thought that won’t come back to her no matter how hard she tries, when yet another sleek black car pulls up to the club. Rey picks up her binoculars just in time to catch the faintest glimpse of yet another man disappearing into the ground, and tries her best to match what little she’d seen to one of the many faces on the print-out crumpled in her fist.

It takes her a while to connect a jagged sliver of skin to a much angrier-looking scar from last year, but with that she’s crossed off the last name on her list. All twelve known members of the gang’s inner circle are present tonight, probably gathered right under her feet.

The night is still young, and there’s a restless, impatient part of Rey that itches to sneak down the stairs, find a dark corner to nurse a drink in and cast inconspicuous glances– but her promise to Ben weighs heavy on her heart, and again the image of him worrying about her flits through her mind. Besides, she’s achieved what she came here to do, and now that she knows for sure the gang meets here, there’ll be other opportunities, other days, maybe even with Ben as back-up…

Nothing out of place with a young couple checking out a cozy little jazz club, right?

With that plan in mind, Rey sets to packing her things up and slowly retracing her steps, electing to crawl along the row of hedges that’ll cover her until she makes it to the other end of the street. All in all, it’s been a good night, productive and safe and not at all concerning–

Until her ears pick up the distinctive _whoosh_ of a heavy cape fluttering down from the sky, until her eyes catch a flash of black and steel and–

_Kylo._

Kylo, who’s just disappeared down the very stairs at least a dozen dangerous, heavily-armed men treaded before him. Kylo, who hasn’t been flanked by his knights in months. Kylo, who might be more than human but is still _alone_ , one man against a dozen who’ve done things that keep even Rey up at night–

Rey gets to her feet and crosses the street before she can even talk herself out of it, before she even knows she’s come to a decision. The flashing, buzzing neon sign gives her pause, blinds her for a moment as it advertises _The Cantina_ and _Live Music Downstairs_. As Rey tries to blink neon pink out of her eyes, a face sears itself onto the back of her eyelids.

Ben.

Ben pacing, Ben worrying, Ben with tears in his eyes and a hitch in his voice and his broad shoulders curled in on himself–

“I’m sorry, baby,” Rey whispers to herself, and swallows the rest of her words down with the lump in her throat as she begins her descent into the underground. In the space between the stairs and the entrance, hidden from the outside world by heavy velvet curtains, she bends down and retrieves a switchblade from her right boot. It’s warm from being strapped to her leg, and the weight is comforting in her palm until Rey slips both the blade and her hand into her jacket pocket.

Fingers still curled around the weapon – a gift from Kylo so many moons ago, ironically enough, _because you never know when to quit, Ms. Niima_ – and shoulders filled with tension, Rey draws in one last fortifying breath and forcefully pushes her way past the curtains into a room barely visible thanks to dim lighting and thick smoke.

It takes longer than it should for her eyes to adjust, for her to realize there’s no jazz in the jazz club, no lively music or low murmurs or faked laughter, for her to see patrons and staff alike huddled in a corner and shaking like leaves in a storm.

“What…” Rey can’t hear herself over the blood roaring in her ears, the heart thumping in her chest. She steadies herself, tightens her grip around the hidden blade, and tries again. “What’s going on here?”

It’s an elderly woman who finds the courage to speak while everyone else seems to curl in on themselves even more than before, making themselves as small and quiet as possible in the darkened room. “It’s the Rens,” she whispers, voice faint and shaky but made audible through sheer resolve. “One of them, at least. He said to stay down, stay quiet, and stay out of the way, and then he disappeared behind the stage.” A trembling hand slowly pulls itself away from her lap to direct Rey’s attention to even more curtains behind the raised platform full of abandoned instruments, and even all the velvet in the world can’t muffle the gunshot that rings out from behind those curtains at that exact moment.

It rips through the air and cuts through the silence like butter, lodges itself in Rey’s heart just as it leaps into her throat.

Kylo always, _always_ uses silencers.

“Stay here,” she warns the crowd, now even paler than before as they all try to recover from the sound; one man has blood on his lips, from where he’d bitten down to keep in a startled cry. “It’s going to be okay, I promise,” Rey adds, unconvincing even to her own ears, but the others don’t contradict her as she rushes across the floor and carefully parts the heavy curtains.

The stage is set up mere feet away from the wall, curtains and cinderblock creating a narrow hallway behind the velvet. A neon _EXIT_ sign draws her eyes down one end, while a sliver of light beckons from the other. The trail of bodies – knocked out or worse; Rey doesn’t want to consider that right now – seem to lead towards the light, and so that’s the direction she slowly heads towards until she’s close enough to press her ear against a closed door.

She can barely make out the words from beyond the heavy oak door, but the terrible gurgling sound that punctuates every other word comes through loud and clear.

“You… traitor…” the gurgling man spits, his words so slurred they’re nearly indecipherable.

Another voice reaches her ears, and Rey nearly sags against the door in relief. “You disobeyed my direct orders,” Kylo replies in a voice as cold and sharp as the winter air, and all it does is fill her up with warmth. “I’m in charge now. And when I say shut it down, I _mean_ it.”

A sickeningly wet sound follows – laughter, Rey realizes; the laughter of a man choking on his own blood and breathing his last breath. “Your father… was right,” the man wheezes in his last moments. “You are _weak–”_

He’s cut off by a sharp _snap_ , and his final words haunt the abrupt silence that follows. Moments pass as Rey desperately gulps down one deep breath after another, her throat growing tighter with every fallen body she counts in the hallway as that undeniable snap echoes in her ears.

A pained groan finally snaps her out of it.

“Kylo!” she calls out as she knocks on the door, alerting him to her presence as one hand curls around the doorknob, the other still lodged deep in her pocket. “Kylo, don’t shoot, it’s me–” Rey announces as she flings the door open only to find him leaning against a wall, his breathing ragged as one hand clutches at his side.

“Oh god,” Rey whimpers, picking her way across a sea of bodies to reach him. “What happened? Are you okay? God, Kylo, why are you even _here_ all _alone_ , this was so ridiculously _stupid_ of you–”

His laugh turns into a sharp gasp as Rey bats his hand away from his side and replaces it with both of hers. “That’s rich, coming from you–” he retorts, only to fall silent when she sobs at the sight of her blood-stained hands.

He’s dressed in all black as usual, the big dumb overgrown goth villain, and she can’t… she couldn’t even see it, before this, can’t tell now how much blood he’s losing or how bad it is.

“We need to get you to a hospital–”

Black gloved hands curl around hers. “No. No hospitals,” Kylo implores her with a weak squeeze.

She can barely see that stupid mask of his through the tears swimming in her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’re going to bleed out–”

He shakes his head at the panicked stream of words tumbling past her lips, squeezes her hands again. “Rey. _Rey._ I’ll be okay, I promise. I just need to get the bullets out, and everything will be okay.”

“But–”

There are so many bodies on the ground. So many, and for each of them at least one gun by their side. Superhuman or not, even Kylo can’t–

“Sweetheart,” he whispers, and she blinks away her tears to look into the empty, cold depths where his eyes should be. “I’m going to be fine, I _swear._ I just… I need you to not be here for this part, okay?”

 _Sweetheart,_ he calls her, in a voice so low and familiar that her mind itches for those two pins and a length of red string again, for the two dots she can’t even identify, let alone connect. But she’s reminded of more pressing matters at hand when her bloody fingers slip from his grasp.

“What part?”

A sigh crackles through his modulator. “The part where I dig bullets out of myself.”

Her stomach, already weak from the past twenty minutes, threatens to turn against her at the thought.

It must be obvious – or maybe she’s turning green – because Kylo seizes on this opportunity to push her away. “It’s not going to be pretty, Rey. Just… I need you to go and get those people out, okay? Can you do that for me, sweetheart? Get them all upstairs and call the cops. And then _go home_ , Rey.”

That chases the nausea off quite effectively. “ _No_ ,” Rey says fiercely, steps closer to erase the distance he’s trying to put between them. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Rey, please–”

“No,” she insists, staring down the soulless steel hiding his eyes from her. “I’m going to get those people out, and then I’m coming back for you. And one of them can call the cops while you and I get the hell out of here.”

Kylo remains silent, and she remains stubborn, unwavering as she continues to glare at his dumb mask and will him into submission just this once.

It would be easy, to do as he says. To turn her back on him now and go help all those people instead, to climb into her car and go home to Ben, Ben who’s probably worried sick by now, Ben whose eyes and voice and heart she actually knows, Ben who actually deserves this kind of care and concern from her.

But Rey never does the easy thing, and they both know it.

“You really don’t know when to quit,” Kylo finally relents with another crackly sigh.

Rey- Rey laughs. It surprises them both, the shaky, wet sound that rips past her lips as she reaches for his hands. “You know me. Now, what’s the plan?”

He takes one of her hands and points out a large bookcase on the other side of the room. “There’s a tunnel, right behind that. Not the most original, I know,” Kylo says wryly, beating her to it, “but it’ll work.”

Their joined hands fall down somewhere between them, and when Rey turns back to him she _knows_ he’s looking at her. “I’ll wait for you here.”

She nods and lets go of him. “I’ll be back soon. And I swear to god, Kylo, if you’re not here when I come back–”

It’s like something out of a dream, watching him peel off a glove to curve a pale, warm palm over her cheek. “I would never do that to you,” Kylo whispers, _vows_ , and–

Even if Rey’s never seen his eyes, even if she’s never heard his voice… in that moment Rey remembers that she _does_ know his heart just as she knows Ben's, knew it long before she ever met Ben.

With guilt wrapped around her like a noose, she takes Kylo’s hand in her own and presses a kiss to his palm.

“Be back in a minute,” Rey promises, and rushes out of the room without looking back.

 

* * *

It takes closer to ten minutes than one to herd all the terrified people upstairs and pass on instructions, but Rey rushes back down as soon as the first 911 call is made. The hidden tunnel won’t stay hidden for long once first responders swarm the place, but all they need is a head-start.

Kylo is waiting for her by the secret entrance when she comes back, the bookcase pushed aside just enough to allow the both of them through.

“Ready to make a run for it?” he asks, holding out a hand. His gloves are nowhere to be found.

Rey laces their fingers together, smiles as she feels his warmth seep into her skin. “With you? Always.”

She thinks he smiles back at her, wishes she could see it, but– baby steps. He lets go of her hand to pull the bookcase back into place, and Rey has the foresight to reach for her phone and turn on her flashlight just as the bookcase blocks out all light and leaves them in total darkness.

He doesn’t reach for her again as they begin walking, but Rey… Rey shakes away the phantom weight of Ben’s hand to seek the comforting warmth of Kylo’s. She laces their fingers together just as the tunnel widens and a faint light comes into view, welcoming them to the old subway tracks the city abandoned decades ago.

Funny, how his hand in hers feels just right, how his palm curves around her cheek just like–

Two pins fall into her waiting arms, with the elusive red string _just_ out of reach.

“Kylo… how did you know I was going to be here tonight?”

“I didn’t,” he says easily, quickly, and Rey might even believe him if not for the little voice in her head that’s growing louder and louder, echoing words and promises and weird dreams she’s always dismissed as wishful thinking.

Rey stops and lets go of his hand, crosses her arms over her chest and waits until he stops as well. “The timing is too coincidental,” she argues, heart hammering in her chest even as her mind reaches and reaches for that goddamn string, for some way, any way, to make sense of it all, to make it _possible._ “And there are never any coincidences with you.”

He keeps his back turned, shoulders tense even as he drops his head. “What are you suggesting, Rey? That I walked into that jazz club and singlehandedly took down the most dangerous syndicate in this country because I was sick and tired of watching you put yourself in danger around them?”

She doesn’t bother to acknowledge the obvious truth. “Only two people knew,” Rey says instead, backing him into a corner. “Only two people in the world knew I’d be here tonight.”

Maz could’ve told him. She’s never mentioned Kylo Ren, never even hinted at possibly knowing him, but Rey honestly wouldn’t be surprised to find out that her foster mother has a direct line to the city’s protector.

And of course there’s always the extremely unlikely possibility that _Ben_ ’s the one who knows Kylo, that he called in a favor or begged for help or maybe just collaborated with Kylo to keep her safe.

But if Ben had even the slightest inkling of what had happened tonight, he’d be here. He’d be here with her, holding her hand, making sure she gets home safe and sound–

And finally, finally Rey accepts the connection there, reaches for the red string and binds the two men in her life into one.

Kylo still hasn’t said anything.

“Take off your mask,” she whispers to his back as her shaking hand reaches for his shoulder.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t turn, doesn’t show even the slightest reaction to her request or her fingers digging into his skin. He won’t even _look_ at her.

“Goddamn it, Kylo!” Rey snaps, reaching out with both hands to turn him around and force him to face her. “Take off that stupid mask!”

Even now, he’s not looking at her. She can tell, she can always tell. “It’s not stupid,” he says weakly, what little humor he must’ve infused his words with lost to the mechanism of his modulator.

All this time wondering what that godawful piece of machinery was hiding from her, only to find out it’s the same voice that whispers sweet nothings into her ear on lazy mornings and breathes devoted promises into the hollow of her neck late at night, when he thinks she can’t hear him promising her a future together, a lifetime with each other.

“It _is,_ ” she growls. “It’s stupid, all of it, and I’ve always hated it – the mask, the modulator, _everything_. I hate that I can never tell if you’re smiling. I hate that I spent two years not knowing what your eyes look like. I hate that I can never tell if you mean any of the things you tell me–”

He reaches for her then, with the same hands that hold her close at night.

“I do, I always do. Rey, everything I’ve ever told you–”

She shakes her head, pulls her hands out of his when she thinks of all the things he _didn’t_ tell her.

Rey closes her eyes, holds herself tight the way she wishes she could let him hold her now. And with the very last bit of energy she has left in her, she takes a leap.

“Take off the mask… Ben.”

For one terrible, quiet moment, she thinks he’s not going to do it, thinks he’s going to lie to her face. But then his shaking hands reach for the mask, and it feels like something out of a dream when there’s a _hiss_ as he reaches behind his neck and undoes the complex mechanism, breaching the seal connecting his helmet to the collar of his stealth suit.

But then he falters, trembling fingers curling around the helmet so tightly his knuckles go white.

“Rey, I…”

The modulator must’ve been deactivated along with everything else, because the voice that pierces her heart is undeniably Ben’s. Ben’s, and small, and _scared_.

So Rey takes that final step for the both of them, closes the distance and replaces his hands with hers. She traces her eyes over every familiar, beloved feature as it’s revealed, full lips and tall nose and whiskey eyes that she knows better than her own.

The mask drops to the ground with a _clang_ that echoes throughout the tunnel, but neither of them react, still lost in each other’s eyes, in their own little world.

“Why?” Rey asks when her tears obscure her vision for the second time that night.

Ben tries to speak once, twice, and then like an avalanche it all comes crashing down. “I… I’m sorry. I’m _sorry._ I fucked up, I know I did, but everything I did, everything I’ve ever done, Rey, I did it because I love–”

“ _Don’t_ ,” she warns him sharply, steps back and points a shaking finger at him. “Don’t you _dare_. Two years, _Kylo_ ,” she snarls at him even as she finally gives in to her tears. “ _Two years_ of waiting, of wondering, of thinking it was all in my head and you could never, would never– and now, _now_ when I’ve finally moved on, _this_? Now when I’m finally happy again, you tell me it was a lie all along? You tell me I’ve been drowning in guilt for _nothing_? You tell me you _love_ me?”

It seems wrong, for a man like Ben – like Kylo – to hang his head and look so utterly defeated. “It was never meant to be a lie.”

She waits. She’s been waiting two years for this story, after all.

“I knew…” He stares at his hands, curls his fingers into fists and sets his jaw before he looks up at her and softens all over again. “I knew I was doomed the second I met you. You were the most _infuriatingly_ reckless, persistent, stubborn, brave, beautiful, _brilliant_ person I’d ever met, and I wanted to kiss you until my lungs ran out of air, until I couldn’t remember a time before you.”

 _Two years,_ Rey has to remind herself to refrain from throwing herself at him right then and there. Two years of them both feeling the same way and torturing themselves over it because of _him_.

Ben blows out a shuddering exhale, runs a hand through his hair in a manner so familiar to her it makes her heart ache.

“But… things were different, back then. Dangerous, for both of us.”

Rey throws him a bone. “Your boss?” she guesses.

He shakes his head, hesitates for a second before he looks at her. “My father.”

After everything Ben’s whispered to her late at night, after everything Amilyn’s said about his relationship with his father, Rey can’t even bring herself to feel shocked.

“It was bad enough that we were starting to strike out on our own, getting less and less obedient with every mission he sent us on,” Ben explains. “If he knew– if he so much as _suspected_ that you were the cause for that, if he thought you were a weakness he could turn against me…”

There’s something haunted in his eyes, something that scares a man she’s never known to fear _anything_.

“I couldn’t let that happen, Rey. I couldn’t let you get close enough for him to find out.”

She wants to accept it, wants that to be enough, but–

“He’s been dead for months, Ben.”

Months and months, most of which she’s spent fearing he’d abandoned her or worse.

“It took a while to settle his affairs,” he says vaguely, and there’s enough discomfort there to keep her from prodding. “And I was going to look for you right after, I was going to tell you everything as soon as I came back, but–”

Suddenly it all falls into place. “But then you saw me at work.”

Ben sighs and drops his gaze to the ground. “There you were, and I was _not_ prepared. Part of me thought it had to be a dream, seeing you in broad daylight and holding you in my arms without those stupid gloves in the way… I freaked out. Next thing I knew I’d fucked it all up as usual.”

“You were a total asshole,” Rey agrees, softening the blow with a tentative smile as Ben looks up.

“From there it just… spiraled. I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t do anything until you knew my true identity, until you had all the facts and could make an informed decision. But after that first day I was so sure you hated me, Ben-me, and I knew I’d never be able to live with myself if I tricked you into something. So that day in the breakroom, when I saw a chance…”

“You took it.”

“I did,” Ben nods as he hesitantly holds out a hand, and the smile he gives her when she takes it is so fragile, so small, but it’s also _everything,_ the way he looks at her in that moment, eyes soft with fondness. “And you surprised me, like you always do.”

She keeps her hand in his, but Rey can’t find it in her to smile back at him. Not when there’s still so much to go over, not when she still has to know– “But why didn’t you tell me then? Why didn’t you tell me all this time we’ve been together?”

“Things were going so well, I was scared to fuck it up,” he murmurs, and she knows exactly what he means, knows exactly how it feels to have something so good and perfect, _too_ good and perfect, drop into your lap and live with the constant fear that it’ll disappear just as easily and suddenly as it appeared. “Besides,” Ben goes on, “you’d said it yourself: Kylo Ren was a fantasy. A nice dream, and nothing more. So I thought… I thought maybe that’s all it ever was to you, maybe you were happy with just me after all. And the next time we met, when you told me you were seeing someone… it felt like you’d made a choice, and it was a choice I was happy to live with. So I let Kylo Ren die.”

There’s so much they’ll have to go back and hash out, so much for her to pick at in just that one sentence about Kylo being nothing but a fantasy for her, but not now. Not today.

“Until tonight,” Rey says instead, leaving the rest for some other day.

“Until tonight,” Ben echoes, free hand tugging at his hair in agitation. “I just… I know how dangerous these guys are, Rey. They reported back to _Snoke_. I know everything they’ve done, and the thought of you getting anywhere near that…” His fingers twitch in her hand, and he pauses for a moment to collect himself. “I gave the order for them to shut down months ago, when I was handling the rest of Snoke’s affairs, but they refused.”

He meant well, she knows. Just like he meant well by keeping her in the dark, just like he meant well by putting Kylo Ren to rest, but– Rey can still see that trail of dead bodies, can still hear the _snap_ of the gurgling man’s neck.

“So you killed them all,” she says quietly, looking at their joined hands rather than him.

Ben rests his other hand over hers, engulfing her between hands that have more blood on them than she might ever know. “And I’d do it all over again,” he tells her without hesitation, voice low and scratchy, “if it means you’re safe.”

It’s too much, it’s all just _too much_ , and she can’t help but say so.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs again and again as he draws her close and holds her tight. “I’m so sorry, I know I fucked up, I’m sorry–”

Rey wraps her arms around him in return and sighs as she allows herself to feel the full brunt of tonight’s events. “You said everything you’ve done, you’ve done for me. For… love.”

A strange thing, love. Life-ruining, even, if not handled correctly.

“I did,” Ben says. “Everything, Rey, it’s all for you, one way or another. Because I love–”

She shakes her head, snakes one hand up to silence him with a finger pressed against his lips. “Not yet,” Rey whispers against his heart. “I don’t want to hear you say it yet. Not after all of this, not before we’ve worked through it.”

This time, they’re going to handle it correctly.

Ben takes the hand hovering close to his lips, presses a kiss to it. “Not yet,” he concedes quietly, with all the contrition of a boy begging for forgiveness and all the hope of a man willing to make amends, “but someday?”

 _Someday_ sounds acceptable.

 _Someday_ sounds like a promise.

“Someday,” Rey agrees, and lets him walk her home that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is about two months late, but it's also nearly twice the length it should've been so... yay for extra content?
> 
> In all seriousness, I'm so sorry for the delay. I love this fic dearly, but writing it has been oddly challenging. And my mind did this neat thing where the longer I put it off, the more intimidating it became to tackle. Fun! I think it's pretty obvious that I struggled with this chapter, but I hope it turned out decent at the very least. And as for that weak ending - I rewrote it at least fifteen times and am _still_ not pleased with it, but at least we'll have an epilogue this weekend to (hopefully) make up for it!
> 
> Thank you to those still reading after that unforeseen hiatus from hell, and as always please don't hesitate to leave a comment below!


	4. epilogue

At the last intersection before Takodana Street, Rey reaches out to still Ben’s nervous tapping against the steering wheel.

It’s the third time in ten minutes that she’s had to do so, and he allows her to pull his hand off the wheel and into her lap with nothing more than a sheepish look from under his lashes.

“Babe, you need to relax. I can’t believe big bad Kylo Ren is _this_ nervous about meeting a little old lady.” Neither of their smiles sour at the mention of his alter ego; after six months of difficult but frank conversations, they’ve finally reached a stage where everything is out in the open but also firmly in the past, something to laugh about now that the wounds have healed.

They’ve also reached the stage where she introduces him to the woman she considers her mother for all intents and purposes, and Rey’s spent the past week trying to assure her boyfriend that tonight’s dinner is going to be just fine. Judging by the way Ben’s fingers keep twitching in her grip, she’s not exactly done a good job.

“ _Little old lady_ makes her sound so harmless,” he mutters as the light turns green. “She raised you, Rey. _You._ There’s no way she’s a harmless little old lady.”

She could tease him for that, but Rey takes pity on him and decides to simply accept it as the compliment that it is. “Okay, fine, so maybe she’s not going to be some cute little grandma,” she concedes, quickly powering through the rest of her sentence before Ben can panic, “but I _promise_ everything is going to be okay. She’s going to take one look at you and ask to keep you forever.”

He doesn’t look convinced.

In the face of everything they’ve been through, of all they’ve overcome to reach this moment, introducing Ben to Maz doesn’t seem like a big deal at all. When she tries to tell him as much though, the tapping just starts back up.

Rey sighs and stares out the window at the familiar surroundings leading to her childhood home, casting about for a distraction. There’s no shortage of shared memories and inside jokes for her to pick from, but one in particular causes a laugh to bubble past her lips unbidden.

“What?” Ben asks, sparing her a quick glance as his lips twitch in response to her laughter.

Rey shakes her head. “Nothing, just… Remember that first day at the office? I didn’t realize it then, but…” She thinks back to their very first meeting outside of his mask, to the wild look in his eyes when she bumped into him, and laughs again. “You were horrified to see me, weren’t you?”

“I could never be _horrified_ by you,” he objects, too distracted and defensive to realize he’s turned onto her street and Maz’s house looms just down the road. “I was terrified, sure, but not horrified.”

“You say that as if there’s a difference,” Rey snorts as they reach the end of the street, only to find that there is, in fact, a difference.

She’s seen Ben terrified many, many times now – starting, of course, with the incident they’re talking about. But parked in front of her mother’s house, having arrived without noticing it and now being mere feet away from his worst nightmare – this is the first time she’s ever seen Ben horrified.

“Is it too late to turn around?” Ben asks even as she moves to release her seatbelt. “We could just tell her I got sick and we need to reschedule–”

The weathered front door swings wide open, and Ben tenses as Maz appears in the doorway.

“Too late,” Rey shrugs, and laughs as she leans forward to press a reassuring kiss to his cheek. “C’mon, it’s going to be okay. I promise.”

Ben is the first person she’s ever brought home, and in the days following Maz’s invitation to dinner Rey had expected to find herself just as nervous as he is about the whole thing. They’ve already discussed the future, already made plans to move in together, but this makes it all _real_ somehow, feels like the first actual step towards that future. And maybe five months ago – or three, or even one – that would have unsettled her, but Rey knows now that everything is as it should be, that they’re finally ready for this.

So she calmly takes Ben’s hands and gives them a squeeze, and gets out of the car to introduce the two most important people in her life to each other with not a single hint of nerves.

“I’m home!” Rey calls out with a grin as she rushes towards Maz, careful not to slam her weight into the older, smaller woman as they meet in a tight hug.

“Always good to have you back,” her mother murmurs into her hair, and they share a quiet moment before Maz pulls back and peeks beyond her shoulder to greet the new arrival. “And you brought a snack! Come closer, Rey’s boyfriend. Let me get a good look at those eyes my daughter is so lost in–”

Ben has always worked best under pressure, and this is no exception. His nerves seem under control as he makes his way up the driveway to join them, and there’s even a smile on his face as he humors Maz and stoops down so that she can get her hands on his shoulders and her face all up in his business, one hand pushing her Coke-bottle glasses up her nose to get a better look at him.

Maz gasps and takes a step backwards, and Rey braces herself for the kind of horribly yet charmingly dirty comment only a little old lady can get away with. At least she’s warned Ben about this bit, so she doesn’t have to worry about him running for the hills when Maz inevitably comments on what good handholds his ears must be or how those lips were made for a higher purpose or–

“Ben Solo!” she croaks, one hand to her heart, and Rey swears she’s never seen her foster mother this genuinely taken aback in all the years they’ve known each other. Maz’s eyes glimmer with tears as she slowly steps closer, reaching forward to settle a hand on Ben’s shoulder once more as her other hand slowly cups his cheek and pushes his face this way and that.

Ben, meanwhile, appears to be completely frozen.

“It _is_ you,” Maz whispers in awe as she finally completes her examination, allowing Ben to straighten up to his full height in a daze. “I would know those eyes anywhere.”

“What– How–”

Rey winds one arm around Ben’s middle when both his voice and his footing falter, planting her feet in the ground when he sags against her just the slightest bit. “Maz, are you saying… you know Ben?”

“Know him?” her mother scoffs, voice still thick with emotion as she ushers them into the house, Rey pulling Ben along as he shuffles after her. “I practically _raised_ this boy. Broke my heart to lose you, second only to your parents I’d say.”

That snaps Ben out of it. “My parents? You know my parents?”

Maz closes the door behind them. “Oh, child,” she sighs, eyes soft and sad as she pats Ben’s arm. “Come. There is so much to talk about.”

 

* * *

 

Dinner is left untouched and forgotten in the kitchen as the three of them huddle close together in the living room, Rey offering Ben silent support and comfort as he and Maz fill in the gaps in each other’s stories to finally form a complete puzzle.

The story goes like this:

One of Ben’s first memories of Snoke is his supposed father droning on and on about his uniqueness, about how special his bloodline makes him. It’s how Ben had pieced together the truth about his adoption-slash-kidnapping in the first place, realizing sometime around the age of six that the man who poked and prodded at him with needles and strange liquids and odd contraptions all day long was not his real family.

The story goes like this:

A long time ago, a highly respected scientist by the name of Sheev Palpatine rose to prominence for his seminal work on gene editing, and his magnum opus was a test subject by the name of Anakin Skywalker, a man he had been experimenting on since infancy in order to create the ultimate human specimen.

The story goes like this:

The Knights of Ren weren’t always five. In fact, when Ben was twelve and finally satisfactory to his father, Snoke introduced him to fifteen new playmates who would be living with them from now on. Having known no one other than his father from the age of four, young Ben was ecstatic to finally have friends – friends who, he would realize in time, just weren’t the same as him. They couldn’t run as fast, couldn’t jump as high, couldn’t kick as far, couldn’t play as long – and eventually, the slowest, weakest ones just… disappeared. In time, though, the four who remained learned to keep up with him, after months and months of poking and prodding and strange liquids and odd contraptions. And so the Knights of Ren were born, with Kylo Ren – the strongest, fastest one – their natural leader.

The story goes like this:

Eventually, the ugly truth about Palpatine’s experiments came to light, and with it a dozen nameless children buried in shallow graves. Not everyone, Palpatine argued, was ready to become the best possible version of themselves. Not everyone, he said, was destined for _greatness._ The law had none of it, and Palpatine was thrown behind bars for the rest of his short life while Anakin went through every test known to mankind until he was finally allowed to walk free and live a normal life, complete with a wife, two kids, and a white picket fence. Until one day, the past reared its ugly head and _broke_ something inside him – and that day ended with a dead couple, two orphaned children, and a dark secret never meant to be unearthed.

The story goes like this:

Secrets never stay buried for long.

 

* * *

 

When all of the pieces finally fall into place, when the last question has been answered and there is no more room left for doubt, Maz goes upstairs to call the Organa-Solos and urge them to make the one-hour drive over.

“I always knew,” Ben says, head in her lap as they lounge on Maz’s porch, his eyes glued to the stars while hers keep careful watch over him, “that I _had_ a family once. But for some reason I never thought…”

Rey runs her fingers through his hair and allows him to gather his thoughts.

“All of the others, they had lives from before, lives they remembered and could go back to after Snoke,” he murmurs after a while. Rey already knows this, already grilled him about the other knights months ago, but she lets him speak anyway. “But this life is all I’ve ever known, all I can remember no matter how hard I try. I’ve been Ben Snoke for so long I couldn’t even remember Ben Solo. Rey, what if… what if…”

Ben turns to her then, looking more scared than he had the night everything came crashing down around them, and her heart _aches_ for him, for what he’s going through, for the pain and fear and tiny spark of hope she knows all too well.

“You know, by the time Maz found me, the Organa-Solos had all but disappeared from this city.”

She keeps her hand in his hair even as her eyes stare blankly ahead, taking a minute to sort out her thoughts before she turns back to a puzzled Ben. “Growing up, everyone knew who they were. Your mother practically ran this city, and your father was nothing short of a legend. But one day she stepped down and he retired, and not long after that they just… disappeared.”

Rey lets that sink in for a moment, holds still as Ben finally rolls off her lap and pulls himself up into a seated position next to her.

“I was still so young then, I had no idea what was going on. Only that the pretty lady wasn’t on front pages anymore and I never saw the Falcon in another race on TV again. But that was five years after you disappeared, Ben. They tried for _five years_ to find you, did everything they could to hold on, and eventually it just broke them. They gave up everything – their jobs, their home, their lives – because it was too painful without you. Because they _love_ you.”

Ben is crying now and so is she, tears running down their cheeks as she reaches for his hands.

“And I think… I _know_ everything is going to work out, Ben. Because they love you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember them, or if they don’t recognize you, or if things are awkward at first. They love you, and you’ll love them, and that’ll be enough until everything else works itself out.”

Because it would have been enough, for her and her parents, if they’d just loved her.

And it has been enough, for her and Ben, while they fix everything else.

So Rey knows, she _knows_ , that when Han and Leia walk through the door in an hour’s time and Ben meets his parents for the first time in more than two decades, everything will be okay.

“How can you know that?” Ben whispers, hands holding hers so tightly it nearly hurts. “How can you be so sure everything will be okay?”

Rey leans forward, presses her forehead to his and waits until Ben closes his eyes to do the same. “Because you’ve already been through so much, baby. Because I know you can make it through _anything_. And because I’ll be right there with you, every step of the way.”

 _That_ , above all else, is what finally gets him to relax into her and release her hands in favor of wrapping his arms around her waist.

“We’ll face this together, I promise,” she murmurs against his lips, kisses him soft and slow until she can feel the beginnings of a smile on him. “You’ll make it through this, Superman.”

He laughs, a puff of air against her chin, and Rey pulls back to find that teasing smirk she’s come to adore.

“Oh, so _now_ I’m Superman?” Ben huffs as he crosses his arms, bright eyes giving away the act.

Rey hums in mock contemplation. “I mean, you _did_ turn out to be my awkward coworker secretly moonlighting as a superhero, so…” She shrugs, biting back a grin as Ben pulls her into his lap.

“And who does that make you, then?”

Underneath his playful smile, behind the brightness dancing in his eyes, there’s still a small, scared boy forever looking for reassurance, forever unsure about his place in this world. So Rey trades her grin for a soft smile and gently takes his face in her hands, stares deeply into his eyes until the right words come to her.

In all honesty, she’s had them ready for months.

“The woman who loves you no matter who you are – Superman or Clark Kent, Kylo Ren or Ben Snoke or Ben Solo.”

Awe washes away everything else on his face, leaving Ben with wide eyes and parted lips as he takes in her words. His breath hitches, he slowly blinks his eyes, and then finally, _finally_ he gives her a brilliant smile for all of two seconds before she’s pulled into a kiss that says everything she needs to know.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” Ben whispers between kisses, holding her so close she swears she can feel the beating of his heart. “Always have, always will.”

The front door opens, and Maz says something about light traffic at this time of day and _another forty minutes at most_ and–

Rey presses her palm to Ben’s heart, the heart she’s known from the very start even when nothing else was certain, and knows that together they can face anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that, friends. After almost exactly three months - just two days shy, in fact - this story has finally come to an end. I can only hope it was a satisfying one for both characters and readers, and worth all the time and emotion you've so generously invested.
> 
> To Nancy, I hope this satisfied you above all. I've come to love this Rey and Ben so dearly, but I know this story would never have existed without you. Thank you for this amazing prompt, and for everything else you do for this fandom. I could spend years trying to write a birthday fic worthy of you, but I hope this came somewhat close to that at least.
> 
> Once again, thank you to everyone for waiting even when all hope seemed lost, and for giving this odd little fic a chance in the first place. I hope you've enjoyed this, and as always please don't hesitate to share your thoughts below. Until next time, friends!
> 
> [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)


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